Mega Comics CheckList

– Dave Davison is the subject of Project: New Man, a partly secret joint venture of the U.S. Government and the Fortress Foundation, a private sector non-profit philanthropic organization dedicated to public defense and scientific research. Dave has the dual role of being part of the research project and at the same time being groomed by the Government as a public protector in the Five Lakes Megalopolis area. Dave has a dark past which he hoped was dead and buried but in his first public adventure he confronts his past and an old partner head on in “The Mall Massacres”. Legacy Comics 1991 Black and White 32 page Independent Comic: Project: New Man #1is FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

– His actual identity is as much a mystery as what drives him. He calls himself Ebenezer Baal, and he is The Haunted Man but he intends for misery to have company as he in turn haunts Dave Davison a.k.a New Man. We find out in this origin tale Dave was not always a hero, and it seems his past is easily as shady as the criminals he now pursues! Co-Starring The Thunder Hawks! The backup story from Legacy Comics 1991 Black and White 64 page Independent Comic: Humants #1! FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

– Dave Davison A.K.A New Man goes out for a morning jog only to return to the Moriah Building under a full scale attack from Cyber-Tech! Also featuring Bearcat, and the Thunder Hawks! Featuring lots of never before published material! 32 action packed pages FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

– We tie up a lot of loose ends in this issue as The Haunted Man concludes. We find out the true identity of Ebeneezer Baal, see Bearcat in action again, see the abduction of Fawn and Nick, Cyber-Tech escapes plus a special secret surprise guest-star! Yeah! This one has it all!Featuring lots of never before published and some ALL-NEW material! 32 action packed pages FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

– High crime rates, higher gas prices, inflation and garbage strikes, are one thing but the recent unnatural storms have the residents Five Lakes Megalopolis rattled. Then the appearance of unusual individuals wielding supernatural powers precede the coming of a walking, flying nightmare! His name is Megeddon, Dark Lord of the Hecati and his chief servant, the powerhouse called Devastax! Krystal McKliston is an investigative reporter looking into these mysteries as she learns there are “Humants Among Us!”The lead story from Legacy Comics 1991 Black and White 64 page Independent Comic: Humants #1! FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

– The Herald, Magistar, and Man Ark must enter into deadly battle with Megeddon, the Dark Lord of the Hecati and his chief servant, the powerhouse called Devastax! Their goal: no less than total world destruction! Krystal McCliston, investigative reporter, tries to capture the action on video while dodging falling debris. She later comfronts a new villain: The Tower! Janeta Rosebud meets Omni Spawn and things will never again be the same! The lead story from Legacy Comics 1992 Black and White 48 page Independent Comic: Humants #2! FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

– Omnispawn ushers in yet another Humant: The Savage Chaosta! Also having survived their first encounter with the evil Dark Lord Mageddon, the Khosmotic Warriors have banded together and rented an old warehouse to use as a headquarters and training facility. Featuring lots of never before published material! 32 action packed pages FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

– This issue features the all out war between the Humants and the Renegade Humants! It's action from cover to cover as Freazie White, Jr. writes and does finished pencils over Mark Poe's layouts and we introduce a new inker, Paul Schulze! Featuring lots of never before published material! 32 action packed pages FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

– What happens when you try to administer first aid to an unconscious Humant? Well, in the case of Chaosta things could get pretty scary when she wakes up and thinks she is still battling the Renegade Humants! Man Ark and Sojourner find a lot of trouble for their efforts! Plus: Much More by Freazie White, Jr. new inker, Anthony Grayand Billy Leavell with Letters and Edits! PLUS: An offbeat Bearcat backup tale! By Mark Poe, Freazie White, Jr., Mark Alan Lester and Billy Leavell! Featuring lots of never before published material! 32 action packed pages FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

– Tess is a young lady who is a living tesseract. She comes from another dimension and in our dimension she can teleport herself or just about anything else just about any where. She manifests the power in a number of ways other than teleportation and she has a cute little 4th dimensional dog with a very high I.Q. named Nostradamus. In short: we are 3D beings, Tess and Nostradamus are 4D beings.Plus: Much More by Greg Legat writer/creator, Mark Poe with pencils, letters and colors! and J. Adam Walters handling inking embellishment. Featuring never before published material! 32 action packed pages FREE to read in this very Web Browser!

Watch for more coming soon!

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2018 is here! And here we are half way through January! Belated Happy New Year! We hope everyone got a few days off for the holidays the latter part of December and first of this month. The powers that be even gave ye ol’ Mega Minions, maintainers of all things digitally Mega, a little time to relax. Now, it’s back to the ol’ grind!

MegaComicsGroup.com tuns 10 years old in 2018! Yep! This year is MCG Blog’s 10th anniversary! It was actually June of 2008 when we went live with our blog page which was followed first with the Project: NewMan and Humants pages. We have since added the Mega Tales pages. There was a couple years involved in the actual building of this group of web sites. The original goal was to post all our comics projects from the 90’s Legacy Comics independent comics venture. There was a lot of unpublished art and stories from the days of the Independent Comics Boom/Bust era of the late ’80’s and early ’90’s. In addition we had a few other projects which for one reason or another never got published. One was the Tess story of Mega Tales #1, but there is still more to come. There are a few art pages but mostly a lot of plots and scripts that were not finished. We hope to get around to all of it. In the meantime we’ve been revising what we have posted here on the MCG web sites. Case in point…

Project: NewMan # 3 – The Dream Sequence. It is officially chapter 4 of The Haunted Man saga which began in Project NewMan #2 and ran through issue # 4. It started with a page designed, drawn, inked and scripted beautifully by comics professional Nathan Masengill. 3 pages were added with the first page to round out a whole chapter. Mark Poe, our fearless leader, doesn’t remember if Nathan did more than one dream page or if the others were done and lost. That’s understandable since the segment was plotted nearly 25 years ago! Since then, Mark added some of his own art, mimicking Nathan’s style as best he could and using a few production tricks utilizing parts of Nathan’s art on the different pages as well. See how sharp eyed an art enthusiast you are at spotting these creative manipulations. We think he did a great job, especially with the latest revisions. Mark had always intended to revise those three pages sometime and make it better. Finally, that day came.

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Archives Spotlight

We Have Not Done This In A While Department: Archive’s Spotlight was designed to look at all which has come before and adding new comments as well. This posting we are previewing Project: New Man #3 pages 1-4!

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Project: New Man #3 – Page 2 – Originally this was a 2 panel page. Mark never felt satisfied with the job he did a very hectic time in his work schedule. So since he has been prepping these books for printing with Ka-Blam Comic Book Printing and digital sales at IndyPlanet as well as DriveThru Comics, he did what he had promised and revised pages 2, 3 & 4 of chapter 4 of the Haunted Man storyline.

Mark’s Remarks:I like this page better… I hope you do as well. The original 2 panels and skimpy scripting was just not enough. It was done during the Autumn of 2010, if memory serves me. That time of year is always the busiest part of my work schedule each year. I had way too much on my plate so I did not do as well as I would have liked. I’ve added some panels and some more script too, hopefully, to clarify and add to the overall storyline, as well as weight to the chapter itself. I’ve done this on other pages as well but mainly in PNM #3 and 4. In issues 1 & 2 I’ve not done much more than cosmetic production changes. Issues 3 & 4 were put together for web comics publication with material from the early ’90’s but also some new art and script. Issue 4 was plotted but never written or completely drawn out. After it’s web comics debut in 2008-2011, I realized Freazie and I had gotten away from our original concept somewhat. There were some contradictions with scripting and some art which needed to be corrected. There are still some areas in need of revisions which I plan to make before we go to press with the rest of our 25 year Anniversary Re-Issues. So keep watching! More on all that later. Onward!

Happy Birthday, John Romita! John V. Romita Sr., better known among his peers and fans as simply John Romita was born January 24, 1930. The week was his 88th Birthday. For those younger folks who may not know, he is an American comic-book artist best known for his work on Marvel Comics’ The Amazing Spider-Man and for co-creating the character The Punisher. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2002.

Romita is the father of John Romita Jr., also a comic-book artist, and husband of Virginia Romita, for many years Marvel’s traffic manager. (Source: Wikipedia)

Spider-Man – John Romita is best remembered for his rendition of Spider-Man. Romita has more than once admitted how intimidated he was to take over the book from the departing, co-creator of the character, Steve Ditko. He did have some big shoes to fill, but he came through like a champ and re-established the look of Spider-man and his supporting cast and with Stan Lee turned it into Marvel’s biggest selling title, even bigger than their flagship book, the Fantastic Four.

Mary Jane Watson – In the ’60’s Romita was responsible for the look of Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker’s soon to be girlfriend and eventual wife and ex-wife. Romita was the first to draw Mary Jane Watson who Lee and Ditko had teased readers with references to in dialog but did not show her until Romita assumed the penciling chores on Amazing Spider-Man.

Art Director- Romita acted as the Art Director at Marvel from the late ’60’s up until the late ’80’s. Romita was responsible for designing the look of the Marvel line.

He was responsible for designing packaging for merchandise, titles and character concepts. He designed the first costumes of The Punisher and Wolverine. Although the designs have been altered over the years the basic elements Romita assigned to them have endured the passage of time. Before he assumed the role of Art Director Stan and Jack shared that position with Stan having final say in most everything.

Mark’s Remarks:John Romita was a great influence on my artwork early on even more so than Jack Kirby. The reason for this is I did not start getting Marvels until the close of the ’60’s. Because of the Spider-Man animated cartoon series I came into comics collecting as a Spidey fan. I went on to become an even bigger fan of the FF later. Being a Romita fan first is somewhat ironic because Kirby influenced Romita as well as every artist at Marvel for decades. I did not know that until years later. I was not as a big fan of Kirby’s early Marvel work which I accessed mainly through Marvel’s reprint series. Some of this was due to Kirby’s evolving style as the 60’s went on. Kirby peaked at Marvel from ’65 through 67. He was still great after that period but his style kept evolving and became more abstract after the peak years. In my younger years I favored more realism in the artwork like that of Neal Adams. Another reason for this was the quality of the reprints. I was fortunate to latch onto some low grade original issues of the Fantastic Four years after their initial print runs and the quality compared to the reprints blew me away!

One of my most cherished memories of the ’70’s Marvel line was the return of Jack Kirby to Captain America! Cap #193 leaped off the stands at me, it seemed, with an awesome cover by my two favorite Marvel artists of that time, Kirby and Romita! Both men could do some great work on their own but it was something special when Romita inked Kirby. It reminded me a great deal of occasions when Wally Wood would ink Kirby’s pencils.

The ’60’s and ’70’s were some great years to be collecting comics and developing my cartoon art skills. I had inspiration not only from Romita and Kirby but also Gil Kane, Wally Wood, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Rich Buckler, Jim Steranko, Marie Severin, John Severin, Bill Everette, Don Heck, Steve Ditko, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Frank Brunner, Dave Simons, Gene Colan, Val Maynerick, Jim Moony, Barry Windsor-Smith, Neal Adams, John Byrne, Frank Giacoa, Joe Sinnott and more than my ol’ memory can recollect at this time. It was a special time and fun to recall.

Onward!

Mark

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Archives Spotlight

Archive’s Spotlight is designed to look at all which has come before and add new comments as well. This posting we are reviewing Project: New Man #4 pages 25-26!

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Project: New Man #4 – Page 25 – No art changes on this and the next page. Panels 4 & 5 of page 25 has some minor script changes. Every panel got script changes on page 26. Again since we are prepping these books for printing with Ka-Blam Comic Book Printing and digital sales at IndyPlanet as well as DriveThru Comics, we are revising script and art which needs adjusting before going to press. See if you can spot the changes.

Happy Birthday, Sal Buscema! Sal Buscema was born January 26, 1936 and has either penciled or inked for Marvel Comicsfrom 1968 through 1996, where he enjoyed memorial stints primarily as a penciler on titles such as X-Men, the Avengers, Marvel Team-up, Captain America, the Defenders, Rom, Space Knight and a ten-year run as artist of The Incredible Hulk. He worked at DC including penciling Batman, Superman, and Superboy stories, and inking the Creeper, Wonder Woman, and other characters’ stories and then back at Marvel where he continued to make deadlines faster than Quicksilver until around 2013 before retiring. He is the younger brother of comics artist, the late John Buscema. (Source: Wikipedia)

The ’70’s Marvel Line – Sal Buscema is probably best remembered for his 10 year run as penciler of The Incredible Hulk. Buscema drew and inked many of the Marvel Characters during the 70’s and he was considered the go-to artist if a book was late and needed a fast fill in. But he did several long runs as penciler on titles as well. He also supplied Marvel with some of it’s most dynamic covers of that decade! Check out this cover he did for The Avengers #89! Whew! You can feel the heat from the energy cascading the distressed figure of Captain Marvel!

Captain America – Next to Jack Kirby, Sal was THE artist for Captain American in the 70’s. He might not have been the most detailed artist, especially depending on who inked his work, but he had the same sense of dynamics which Cap’s original artist did. Many fans had a hard time accepting Sal’s many successor’s on the book even though many of them were fine artists in their own respect. Except for maybe John Byrne, none of the other pencilers had that powerful, action packed, explosive quality Sal’s pencils conveyed. Sal’s work always was better when he inked it himself. He always had more detail when he did the whole art job. Some of the best examples of that was work he did on the Avengers with Roy Thomas. He also did the final issue (#66) of the original run of the original X-Men following Neal Adams before it went into it’s reprint run. Sam Grainger inked that one which is very detailed.

The Defenders- Another title which Sal Buscema was THE artist on was The Defenders. He was the first penciler on the regular series and penciled most of the first 50 issues. Keith Giffen retained some of that dynamic when he assumed penciling chores but he was the bestow Sal’s successors.

Spider-Man – Sal Buscema drew Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up and later in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man. The stories always had that Sal Buscema dynamic story telling but Sal drew Spidey a little too stout at times. It was almost as if Captain America had put on Spidey’s costume. Later, in his career Sal would re imagine his Spider-Man and he seemed a little more like the agile wall crawler Steve Ditko and John Romita drew so well.

Mark’s Remarks:Sal Buscema was another great influence on my artwork. During the ’70’s At the time I was more attracted to realistic art like Neal Adams. I was torn between choosing abstract, more simplistic cartooning, like Sal Buscema and John Romita and the more realistic detail of Adams, Jim Starlin, Frank Brunner, John Buscema and others. Pencilers like Jack Kirby still had a powerful draw on me. Sal was not as abstract as Kirby but not as realistic as Adams. Sal could do great detail work when given the time but a lot of his ’70’s work was abbreviated in the Kirby vein, sacrificing a little detail in favor of simple but powerful action sequences.

Sal Buscema was the original artist for the Defenders! This pin up was contained in the back of Defenders # 6. Notice the dynamic, Kirbyish action poses of our heroes. This is a good representation of most of the powerful but simple artwork Sal did in the ’70’s. In an article I once read by Alex Toth, he alluded to something that has stuck with me. This is not a direct quote but it was something like: “It’s not what you draw but what you don’t.”Minimalism is a technique every cartoonist has to perfect. Too much artwork is overworked. I know mine has been. I’m constantly trying to refine mine and learn better minimalistic techniques. Contemporary cartoonists like Bruce Tim and Darwyn Cooke have mastered this technique in recent years. Both artists tend to use more abstract methods than realistic so they really fit into the Kirby category more so than the Sal Buscema and John Romita column.

Even though officially retired now, or semi-retired might be more appropriate, Sal is still active making occasional convention appearances. He is still doing outstanding art for Marvel, DC, and others. He’s doing some great inking on the Black Dynamite series for IDW. Happy birthday Mr. Buscema! Thanks for all the great comics!

Onward!

Mark

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Archives Spotlight

Archive’s Spotlight is designed to look at all which has come before and add new comments as well. This posting we are reviewing Project: New Man #4 pages 21-22!

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Project: New Man #4 – Page 21 – No art changes on this and the next page. Panel 5 of page 21 has some minor script changes. Almost all the script changes on page 22. Again since we are prepping these books for printing with Ka-Blam Comic Book Printing and digital sales at IndyPlanet as well as DriveThru Comics, we are revising script and art which needs adjusting before going to press. See if you can spot the changes.

New Talent Department! His name is Steve Moore – BUT he’s not the guy who has done The Bleachers comic strip and has 2 or 3 animated movies to his credit as well. This guy is a new and rising star. Check out a few of his art works in this blog. Mr. Moore is a graduate of the Academy of Art University who claim graduate who have been hired at such places as Marvel, the New York Times, Wired Magazine and others. Check out his web page for lots more art samples: stevemooresart.com.

SheUn –Steve Moore is the creator, writer and artist of a three issue mini series, which he also has collected in a single edition, featuring SheUn and the Theory of Fuzzy Entanglements. SheUn is “an unhinged teenage girl and her eccentric grandfather travel through time and space leaving havoc in their wake.” The initial offering is a three issue, Standard Comic, Black & White, 56 Pages with color covers. It is available from IndyPlanet.

Academy of Art Works! Academy students are encouraged to pursue collaborative opportunities with talented colleagues from other disciplines at the university and beyond. This is the story of Alexandria Huntington, a School of IllustrationBFA student recently chosen in an international contest sponsored by Adobe to create a one-of-a-kind Marvel Avengers comic. Discover how you, too, can create cool art while in school. This is your time. Your dream. Your career. Your journey.

Black Widow’s New Handler – Alexandria Huntington BFA Student, School of Illustration. Summer 2015 will go down as one for the books for Alexandria Huntington, for this was the summer she took the Con…the pop culture phenomenon Comic-Con, that is. Huntington was one of four student-artists selected in an international contest sponsored by Adobe to create two pages for a limited-edition, student-illustrated comic book centering on Marvel’s Avengers characters. Huntington handled the arc of the popular Black Widow character (played by Scarlett Johansson in the film blockbusters), while three other (male) students focused on Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. “It was a thrill to be at Comic-Con as the only woman on that particular Marvel panel, signing autographs and giving out the comic,” she says.

The Project- In a unique partnership, Adobe and Marvel joined forces to create the first-ever Avengers comic fully illustrated by students, powered—in another first—by the Adobe Creative Cloud software suite. Marvel editors mentored and guided four students chosen from a pool of about 50 hopefuls to create an instantly vintage “origins” comic book that debuted to great fanfare at San Diego Comic-Con 2015. The effort gave Huntington and her peers a truly one-of-a-kind experience working with industry leaders. “That was obviously a really cool project,” she says. “Creating this comic opened my eyes to the creative process, and how Marvel artists approach their comics. They’re very specific about what they want, and that pushes you to work really hard to achieve the quality they’re known for.” (Source: www.academyart.edu)

Mark’s Remarks: This past week was the first time I had seen Steve Moore’s artwork. I discovered it over at IndyPlanet. I like to go over their pages every week and see if there is any new titles which I would like to support. When I saw Steve Moore’sSheUn books I liked the art. There seemed to be a little Dave Stevens influenced there. I liked the mixture of realism and cartoony style. The chapters are very humorous and the storyline is not too heavy. Lighthearted but not campy. The price of $3.49 for the digital version was a little high but from the samples I thought it might be worth it. I was not disappointed. You might not want to commit to all three issues but give one a try. There is a collected version all three issues for 6 or 7 bucks if you want to go that route.

I don’t follow a lot of current books but every now and then I run up on something I like. I enjoy searching for independent gems. I think Steve Moore is a creator to keep and eye one. I expect him to make his mark in the comics industry.

Onward!

Mark

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Archives Spotlight

Archive’s Spotlight is designed to look at all which has come before and add new comments as well. This posting we are reviewing Project New Man 4 Page 31!

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Project: New Man #4 – Page 31 – Only minor art changes on the last panel of this page.NewMan’s dialog exchange with CyberTech was the main modification here. This one was actually done a couple weeks ago but slipped through the cracks when we posted. This week we’ve been doing mainly art retouching in PNM #3 in prepping these books for printing with Ka-Blam Comic Book Printing and digital sales at IndyPlanet as well as DriveThru Comics. We should have some of that posted next week.